Metric V.S. Customary

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One of the strangest things about the U.S. is that their way of measurement is different than the rest of the world. In the U.S, they use the Customary system of measurement instead of the Metric system, which is used everywhere but the U.S. The history of the Metric and Customary system is a long one and depending on the person, it is obvious to them which is better.

The Customary system was generally derived from the British Imperial System which was used by the British from 1824 – 1965. The British Imperial System evolved from thousands of measurements from the middle ages. Back then the names pound, foot, and gallon were commonly used everywhere. In 1824, The Weights and Measures act was created which helped the British determine measurements better but they ditched the British Imperial System in 1965 and replaced it with the Metric system. The Customary system was derived from the British Imperial System before the Weights and Measures act which meant it was derived from the unperfected version. Currently, the Customary system is almost identical to the British Imperial system except for fluid ounces, pint, quart, and gallon. Everyone in the U.S. knows that the Customary system contains inches, feet, yards, and miles but many think it is too complicated and that is why the Metric system was created.

The Metric system was first created in the French Revolution of 1761 and they wanted to replace their confusing system made of thousands of units with simple multiples of ten. It is generally agreed that a man named Gabriel Mouton was the main founder of the Metric system. In 1791, the French National Assembly made the French Academy of Sciences discuss and fix weights and measures and they decided to base the measurements on a quadrant of a great circle of Earth. By 1795, the measurements were derived from a meter using a gram for weight, a liter for capacity, and a millimeter for distance. At first, the metric system was never really used before France revised it and started using it and now it’s the most widely used kind of measurement.

With the many revisions made to both measurement systems, many people all over the world consider the Metric system much more superior to the Customary system as it is easier to remember. This is because the Metric system uses multiples of ten instead of being all over like the Customary system. Although, this all comes down to personal preference so people should just use anything that suits them.